The form is either (a) Samaritan or (b) Jewish Palestinian Aramaic before 200 CE. I intend to look into the dating more exactly. Add to this the SPELLING WITH HE NOT ALEF. This is either (a) Samaritan or (b) Jewish Palestinian before 150 CE.Though the Eusebian Numbers have nothing to do with the primitive text of the Diatessaron, yet these intertextual initials are important, because they belong to the primitive form of the Diatessaron. This part of the subject belongs to the department of Dr. Rendel Harris but he will permit me to mention. here one important observation he made. Zacharias Chrysopolitanus, one of the numerous commentators of the Latin Harmony, the only one whose work has been printed, as far as we know, uses as tokens for the Evangelists: R for Marcus, M for Mattheus, A for Johannes, L for Lucas. To these initials Zachary adds the Eusebian Numbers?).
Now we turn to the Arabic, which I quote from the translation of Rev. Hope W. Hogg?). The Borgian manuscript has in a prefatory note (/.c., p. 42) the following statement : ‘‘“Matthew whose symbol is M, Mark whose symbol is R, Luke whose symbol is K, John whose symbol is H’’. Though there is a difference with regard to Luke, the resemblance in the system of quoting by the second consonant of Mark and John cannot be accidental to the system here and in the Harmony of Zacharias. The system must be primitive and belong to the earliest tradition. From the edition of Hogg we cannot see whether the Borgian Ms. has the same system of intertextual references as the whole Latin tradition ; but Ciasca’s Arabic text has a kindred system of labelling words and sentences, only it gives the whole name instead of its symbol only (cf. Burkitt, Evang. Da-Meph., VI., p. 4). May we not infer that these references came from Tatian himself, and that they imply that the Synopsis of Ammonius ‘precedes the Harmony of Tatian, as Eusebius suggests, and that the work of Tatian was to combine into a single tradition the four-fold Gospels of Ammonius ? The ‘name Diatessaron accordingly was first used by Ammonius (cf. the letter of Eusebius to Carpianus). It follows that the harmonistic influence on the Text of the Gospels is twofold : first from the four columns Synopsis of Ammonius (in the first place, I believe, intended forlectionary use in the Churches), and secondly from the Diatessaron of Tatian. https://ia803409.us.archive.org/25/item ... o_v8k9.pdf
he Arabic has MRQH. But the last letter is H.ET not HE, so to connect it with Marqe you have to assume an alteration. This is plausible but not proven.
BUT the Latin MRKA almost certainly comes from Semitic MEM-RESH-QOF-HE or MEM-RESH-QOF-HE both of which are Marqe or in Jewish Palestinian Aramaic Marqa. THIS IS IMPORTANT. Indirectly the supposition of an alteration in the Arabic is strengthened as well, though still not proven.
If you take the letters MEM-RESH-QOF-HE and write MRQH or then that’s a transcription of the letters as marks, or what is called a graphemic transcription. If you write Marqe or [marqe], then that is a phonetic transcription, a representation of the sound.
The Latin acrostic MRKA is graphemic but according to an old system, not the modern system. It would correspond to MEM-RESH-QOF-HE or MEM-RESH-QOF-ALEF. If it is meant to represent a word, the pronunciation would still be Marqe or Marqa.
Marqe is the Babylonian or Samaritan spelling of the Roman name Marcus. Florentin has argued that the Samaritans preserved names in the vocative tense. No one knows why but we see 'Titus' for instance become Tite, just as Marcus becomes Marqe.